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Ending Medicaid expansion in Arkansas could have a “substantial cost” for the state, according to a consultant’s report. Representatives of The Stephen Group appeared Wednesday before the state Health Reform Legislative Task Force to discuss a report the panel hired them to produce containing recommendations on reforming health care. The task force is charged with recommending a model that could replace Arkansas’ Medicaid expansion program, known as the private option, which uses federal Medicaid money to subsidize private health insurance for Arkansans earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level and is slated to end on Dec. 31, 2016. If Arkansas continues with some form of Medicaid expansion in 2017, it will begin paying a share of the cost that will increase gradually to 10 percent by 2021. (Lyon, 10/8)

Consultants hired by Arkansas legislators to review the state's "private option" Medicaid plan recommended Wednesday that the program continue but suggested changes that would move participants into jobs and ensure they are leading healthy lives. Under its own approach to the federal Affordable Care Act, Arkansas uses federal money to help buy private insurance for poorer residents. (Kissel, 10/7)

Low-income Utahns pleaded with lawmakers Tuesday to pass legislation that they said could enable them to get urgent treatment for illnesses, but the proposal met with a barrage of criticism from doctors and other health providers who said taxing them to pay for the health care is unfair and damaging. Members of the Health Reform Task Force heard hours of testimony about the recently unveiled Utah Access Plus proposal, the first and perhaps only hearing on the plan hammered out in months of negotiations between Gov. Gary Herbert and legislative leaders. The message was mixed. (Gehrke, 10/7)

A coalition of health representatives and state and tribal officials established by Gov. Dennis Daugaard to explore the possibility of expanding Medicaid in South Dakota is first focusing on how to free up enough funds to pay for the state's share. The Health Care Solutions Coalition met for the first time Wednesday in Fort Pierre. The Daugaard administration has broadly outlined to federal officials a proposal to expand the health coverage program for low-income and disabled people and the federal government is taking the ideas seriously, said Kim Malsam-Rysdon, a senior adviser to the governor. (Nord, 10/7)

Former Kansas Gov. and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius returned to the Midwest on Wednesday to chime in on growing debates in Kansas and Missouri over whether those states should expand their Medicaid programs, as allowed under the federal Affordable Care Act. “In Kansas, a hospital just closed,” Sebelius said, referring to the pending closure of a community hospital in Independence, in southeast Kansas. “The CEO of that hospital said there were a number of financial pressures, as there are in a lot of small towns, but he particularly identified the failure of the Kansas Legislature to push forward the Medicaid expansion as one of the significant cost issues that they just couldn’t balance anymore,” she said. (Hancock, 10/7)

Health care has been a hot-button policy issue for years in the Florida Legislature, and it’s starting to look like the session scheduled to start on Jan. 12 will be no different. Battles over Medicaid expansion and payments to hospitals treating low-income patients were so bitter in the spring, it brought the Legislature to a halt. (Shedden, 10/7)

The average small business in Minnesota should see a relatively small increase in health insurance premiums next year, as rates in the market continue to be more stable than for people who buy individual policies. Last week, the state Department of Commerce released data on premium rates for 2016, including average jumps of about 41 percent in the individual market. But for “small groups” that provide health insurance coverage to between two and 50 people, the average rate of increase next year will be 1.29 percent, after factoring market share projections among different insurers, Commerce said. (Snowbeck, 10/7)